Just a thought...

We should trade Baron while he has some worth....

In fact, lets package baron and jrich together...

Monta Ellis is clearly the future, and pietrus is where jrich was at last year.

baron, jrich, dunleavy to the pacers for tinsley, artest, foster...

tinsley, pietrus, artest, diogu, foyle....this is a lineup that any defensive coach would love.

 

It's too much like the old "grass is greener on the other side" mentality. Just keep Baron Davis. We strip away Baron Davis we lose our pure point guard that can score, we lose our team leader and captain, and we definitely lose all hope of going to the playoffs this year. We can still make 7th or 8th seed, but the Warriors have to gain some consistency and an identity. One on one play isn't going to cut it in this league. We need some kind of organization and I'm not sure if Monty is a coach the players will buy into. Also, maybe the players aren't disciplined enough to run organized play sets like the star-less Jazz do or the Memphis Grizzlies.

 

Baron is the only reason this team is as good as it is right now. Baron is the definition of untradeable...

 

Baron isn't the issue.

The man just presses sometimes because the team stands around doing nothing.

 

I don' blame him either. He's got an angel on one shoulder saying "You're still new here, and the leader, you've got to get guys involved and lead by example."

Then there's the devil on his shoulder saying "Yeah but you're the best player on the court and all your teammates stand around and pick their butts. They're all afraid to play inside. Except you. And, well, also that Diogu guy. He likes to play inside and he doesn't take crap on the chin like everyone else. We all know the entire Oakland fanbase wants you to carry this entire team on your shoulders. Do it, Baron. You can't let them down."

 

that is the dumbest sh!t i've ever heard. i'm not even gonna take that seriously.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting custodianrules2:</div><div class="quote_post">We need some kind of organization and I'm not sure if Monty is a coach the players will buy into. Also, maybe the players aren't disciplined enough to run organized play sets like the star-less Jazz do or the Memphis Grizzlies.</div>

How about getting some players who are disciplined enough to run the plays they are given? What a novel concept.

Damn I saw hope back in November. Let's look forward to drafting the next Latvian.

No I'm not off the bandwagon, its so depressing knowing that the players have the ability to excel but that they simply chose not to.

 

Yeah, it's shoking how quick (for me) this Monty vs. team issue has come about.

A month ago I wasn't the least bit concerned with coach. Right now, it's apparent that something's not working.

In baseball, individual players go through slumps. That's common. It's a long season, there are injuries, and most importantly in baseball psychological distractions are more pervasive because you are sitting around or standing around for a half-hour on end. You aren't always "in-the-flow" so it's easier to be affected mentally.

In basketball, IMO, it's much more rare for players to go through "slumps" It happens, but in basketball, if you miss a shot and it get's in your head, within 24 seconds you'll have a chance to remedy that mental conflict. In baseball, you'll have to wait an hour, cold, for your next at-bat. So in basketball I really don't believe in "slumps" all that much; especially team-wide slumps.

I do believe in breakdowns in focus.

A team, young and inexperienced like the Warriors, can get a taste of success early in the season due to a very weak schedule. Things just work for them. They breakdown on many plays but make up for it with improv or athleticism. People talk playoffs. ESPN hypes one of the most "explosive backcourts in the league."

In this scenario, unless you have a deeply engrained defensive philosophy, a dilligence and insistence on details and taking it "one game at a time," it's easy to loose focus on what it takes to win games. You start taking it for granted. Then you get smoked by the Suns, Clips and Spurs. Okay, those are great teams. Then Houston? and New Jersey by 25+? Then Boston? Philly?

Suddenly, doubt sets in. Or frustration. Or stubborness.

You see, well coached teams like Greg Popovich's would never go through extended periods with a lack of focus; he's much too demanding of attention to detail. He wants perfection every practice. On every play. Every second. Perfect performance, perfect footwork, perfect attitude, perfect focus.

My point here is that this extended lapse of focus isn't a slump.

Because the Warriors can snap out of it any time they choose.

Slumps are inexplicable lack of results; the player just tries to "find their way out of it," in baseballl changing hats, pulling up socks, chewing different brands of chewing gum, not changing their underwe... we won't go there.

The point is that this inconsistent discipline and focus in basketball can be remedied.
But not until there is a clear concencus, a specific set of goals established. Once you have a clear, specific target on which to focus, then the arrow can hit the mark.

But this has to be established by the coach. And enforced.

Pop does it. Jerry Sloan does it. All good coaches do it.

This sudden dip in performance isn't inexplicable. It's not a mysterious, sudden rift in the chemistry. It isn't a complex set of match-ups that the coaching staff is failing to see. It isn't even Derek Fisher's inability to knock down long range shots.

The Warriors just don't appear to have a dedicated focus. And perhaps that's because they don't have a clear, specific target at which to take aim. Without it, they're just playing street ball.

 

Well the first problem is that Baron, J-Rich + Dunleavy make 61% more than Artest, Tinsley and Foster.

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Run BJM:</div><div class="quote_post">the coach has to get the players' respect and he should be able to control his players. Have you noticed that the longer Monty has had to implement his offense the worse our team has performed? Interesting to say the least.</div>
At the start of the season usually teams have new guys, and players are rusty and a little bit out of shape, and don't have the offense down, nor do they have defensive cohesion.

So a team with a lot of individual talent can rip apart these disorganized defenses, however once teams develop help defense and distributed scoring on offense it becomes a lot harder for an individual to do everything by himself. (ie Baron)

I think the Warriors will end up doing better, because they do have a lot of talent.

 

I am going to call out all of the JRich fans out there. Why no criticism of him? We hear criticisms of everyone else.

JRich was lauded as the "next superstar" the next "All-Star", the guy who got snubbed last year. Well the team stinks right now and it has coincided with a drastic slip in his game. Is there a correlation?

A superstar is someone who makes his team better. Well if JRich is going to be a superstar he's got to be accountable, where is the improved team play?

I think JRich has allowed his supporters to fall in love with his stats without looking at whether he makes those around him better.

Look at the difference between LeBron and Kobe. Although Kobe won the game (and he was huge down the stretch) LeBron had 9 assists, Kobe, um 1.

The NBA is a players league, well look at the teams on top, the leaders hold the others accountable for playing better. The Pistons are not winning because of Flip Sanders (well some) but because leaders (Chauncey/Rip/Rasheed) demand it. Same for the Spurs, the Mavs, and the Suns.

 

I don't think anyone was comparing JRich to Kobe or Lebron were they? Richardson improves on an aspect of his game every year, he still needs to learn how to dribble and keep his focus, and he's slupming right now. Of course it's no coincidence in the numbers of losses and his drop in performance. When your best scorer (yes I said scorer not player) is struggling, it will be hard to beat good basketball teams.

 

Impressive stuff AlleyOop, very impressive.

The lack of focus is a very interesting topic. I think for this situation, it can be related to the lack of unity between the players and the coach.

I get the sense and read about Mike Montgomery being unhappy that the team isn't playing the way he wants them to play or running the plays like he wants them to be run, and the players aren't doing what he is saying. Also there is Mike Montgomery on the bench, also seemingly sitting there with a lack of focus or maybe there is a better word for this, maybe interest(?) in the games.

I think what happens next is that the players, maybe the whole team at the beginning of the games will try to play in the "system". Then things will go bad(like they have at the beginning of games), with the way that they aren't exacuting with the system, so then there will be the top skilled players who can't stand the lack of exacution on the court, try to take things in their hands too much. Then there are players doing different things, maybe trying to play more within the system they go over in practice. The final product is that they aren't feeding off eachother because they don't even know what the ball handler will do. This leads to a lot of standing around. And very poor offense and exacution which looks terrible and is very ineffective.

Basically there must be much better unity between the players and the coaches to work together to come up with something more suitable and effective, both offensively and defensively. The coach can't be stubborn about just playing the style of which he wants to see played. He must be flexible(especially with how the Warriors' roster is set up). And then the players must be able to listen, and the coach ought to be better at being strict on how the team plays with eachother and how they communicate on the court. Both communication and being able to play off eachother is something that the Warriors lack in big ways.

Bringing the team back together and putting them all on the right page usually starts with the coaches job or maybe a core of players. However on the bench we just see Montgomery sitting as a spectator, maybe even an indifferent spectator, which is much worse; and it doesn't help the cause. Because really it's been said publically how this team's core isn't so greatly together when it comes to coming up with roles on what to do on the court. We don't have that Detroit core. There is so much turmoil, this would be a good time for some leadership from the coaches to make so changes or something. Or else, I guess the next step would be trades...

Also for philsmith and also others(including Mike Montgomery), I disagree that the NBA is a players' league. If the NBA was a players' league then the Warriors would be better than the Lakers in the standings, and the Grizzlies would not be so high, not so high at all. The Lakers would have never won the three titles if it weren't for Phil Jackson, and the Jazz wouldn't be in the playoff race, and the Rockets wouldn't be at the bottom of the Western Confrence. In my opinion there are lots of teams with good players, similar to the Warriors. And having a coaching edge, especially in the situation where the Warriors sit(not like the Mavs, Spurs, Pistons) is very big in my opinion. Good coaches can usually get much better production out of the role/bench players, something I think this team lacks big time, and something we could see fine of with Phil Jackson and how efficent Smush Parker played tonight.

 

The whole Jrich thing is not quite accurate because he had 37pts last night and we lost by really 4 points last night. How many FTs did the team miss? That right there would have won the game. Just the FTs Jrich missed would have won the game for us. How many times when we needed a stop at the end of the game and could not get one? Now I credit Kobe for that, but what about the layups to Parker? Or the wide open shots for Walton and George. Those guys killed us last night. I am ok with Kobe scoring 40+ and beatin us, but not scrubs doubling or tripling their season avg and beating us. It is the players job to execute. When the players do not execute it is the coaches job to pull this team together. This team is falling apart and I blame that on the coach. If Monty is not up to the task I say get someone who is. Ellie can be the interim coach, but I want a good coach. One like Denver hired last season a few seasons ago and they went on a tear to end the year because he brought that team together. I always said that Monty deserved no credit for our winning streak to end the season that miraculously happened once Baron was on the team. With that being said, I think he deserves a good share of the blame however because he has not done jack!

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Clif25:</div><div class="quote_post">I think what happens next is that the players, maybe the whole team at the beginning of the games will try to play in the "system". Then things will go bad(like they have at the beginning of games), with the way that they aren't exacuting with the system, so then there will be the top skilled players who can't stand the lack of exacution on the court, try to take things in their hands too much. Then there are players doing different things, maybe trying to play more within the system they go over in practice. The final product is that they aren't feeding off eachother because they don't even know what the ball handler will do. This leads to a lot of standing around. And very poor offense and exacution which looks terrible and is very ineffective.

Basically there must be much better unity between the players and the coaches to work together to come up with something more suitable and effective, both offensively and defensively. The coach can't be stubborn about just playing the style of which he wants to see played. He must be flexible(especially with how the Warriors' roster is set up). And then the players must be able to listen, and the coach ought to be better at being strict on how the team plays with eachother and how they communicate on the court. Both communication and being able to play off eachother is something that the Warriors lack in big ways.</div>

Yep, this is a great point. It may sound pretty simple -- "Get everyone on the same page" -- yet it is a concept often under-emphasized in the NBA.

I call it synergy.

When you have a system -- and group of individual working parts -- that functions as a consistent, unifed whole, what happens is that the results, the production of that system, exceed the levels of the values of the individual parts.

If you have 5 factories that can produce 2 cars per hour, the net result is 10 cars per hour for your business. However, if you find a way to merge those 5 factories together, share the resources and consolodate the labor, your net production will exceed the original levels. Perhaps you'll start to produce 15 cars per hour.

There must be a balance between the player's "creation" and the coach's "battle plan." Good coaches put their players in a position to win, and good players rely on their coach to do that for them.

When you have a coach who establishes a unifed, consistent, and clear target for his players to take aim at, and you have players that trust the coach to put them in a position to release the arrow, a synergy develops where all the parts work together smoothly.

Ala the Hoosiers. Ala Utah Jazz.

 

I agree with everything said here. BTW WFS93 did bring up the comment of scrubs doubling their season averages. It does seem like forwards tend to smoke us going to the hoop. Could it be lack of toughness inside or lack of help coming from different positions? I think so.

It would be ideal if all of our starters knew how to man-up on defense and be able to help out. I think we are just too slow, too soft, and we aren't making good decisions on the floor.